Survey of educational drop-out indexes and its related factors in alumni of paramedical faculty of Kashan Medical University

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Educational dropout is one of the problems of educational system. The educational drop-out prevention and its complications require recognition of the probability risk factors. So, this study is carried out in order to assess the indexes of educational drop-out and its related factors in alunmi of paramedical faculty of Kashan medical University, Iran. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was performed on the entire alunmi from 1990-2003 (n=1439). The questionnaire including probability related factors and the indexes of educational drop-out (probation, unacceptable total average, lesson repeating, major changing, withdrawing, ejection from university, education leaving and delay in graduating) was used. FINDINGS: Prevalence of probation, unacceptable total average and delay in graduating were 9.2 (n=133), 14.5 (n=209), and 14.1 (n=203), respectively. The utmost probation frequency was related to first and then second semester. Delay duration was only one semester in 152 (10.56). 413 (28.7) had repeated lesson that 227 (15.8) had repeated only one lesson. Prevalence of major changing, withdrawing, ejection from university and education leaving were 2 (n=29), 0.9 (n=13), 0.4 (n=6), and 0.6 (n=9), respectively. There was an association between demographic data, prior educational status, and admission criteria with academic drop-out. CONCLUSION: With attention to the considerable prevalence of educational drop-out and its risk factors, diagnosing and supporting of the vulnerable students is a must

Embroid: Unsupervised Prediction Smoothing Can Improve Few-Shot Classification

Recent work has shown that language models' (LMs) prompt-based learning capabilities make them well suited for automating data labeling in domains where manual annotation is expensive. The challenge is that while writing an initial prompt is cheap, improving a prompt is costly -- practitioners often require significant labeled data in order to evaluate the impact of prompt modifications. Our work asks whether it is possible to improve prompt-based learning without additional labeled data. We approach this problem by attempting to modify the predictions of a prompt, rather than the prompt itself. Our intuition is that accurate predictions should also be consistent: samples which are similar under some feature representation should receive the same prompt prediction. We propose Embroid, a method which computes multiple representations of a dataset under different embedding functions, and uses the consistency between the LM predictions for neighboring samples to identify mispredictions. Embroid then uses these neighborhoods to create additional predictions for each sample, and combines these predictions with a simple latent variable graphical model in order to generate a final corrected prediction. In addition to providing a theoretical analysis of Embroid, we conduct a rigorous empirical evaluation across six different LMs and up to 95 different tasks. We find that (1) Embroid substantially improves performance over original prompts (e.g., by an average of 7.3 points on GPT-JT), (2) also realizes improvements for more sophisticated prompting strategies (e.g., chain-of-thought), and (3) can be specialized to domains like law through the embedding functions.Comment: 38 pages, 22 figures, 8 table

Frequency and Predictors of Courses Repetition, Probation, and Delayed Graduation in Kashan Faculty of Nursing and Midwifery

Background: Course failing and delayed graduation are important concerns in educational systems. The reasons of these educational failures need to be clarified. Objectives: This study was designed to determine the academic failure rate and its predictors in Nursing and Midwifery Students in Kashan University of Medical Sciences. Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the records of all the students graduated in Nursing and Midwifery faculty during 18 years (1986 - 2003) were evaluated (1174 graduates). The demographic variables and the educational situation were recorded. The frequency of course repetition, probation, and delayed graduation were determined and the data were analyzed using the chi-square and logistic regression tests. Results: The frequency of course repetition, probation, and delayed graduation was reported to be 19.25%, 3.9% and 19.85%, respectively. Gaining Low grade in high school, transferring from other universities, having special quota, and transferring temporarily to other universities were mentioned as the risk factors of academic failure. The major had a significant relationship with academic failure. Day time students had more course failure and night time students stayed longer in the university. Conclusions: The individual characteristics, educational background and admission criteria had showed relation with academic failure. Vulnerable students should be identified and educational supports should be provided for these students

Bayesian inference of population expansions in domestic bovines

The past population dynamics of four domestic and one wild species of bovine were estimated using Bayesian skyline plots, a coalescent Markov chain Monte Carlo method that does not require an assumed parametric model of demographic history. Four domestic species share a recent rapid population expansion not visible in the wild African buffalo (Syncerus caffer). The estimated timings of the expansions are consistent with the archaeological records of domestication

Genetic characterization of Markhoz goat breed using microsatellite markers

The use of molecular markers can support the management of endangered populations and should be combined with appropriate breeding strategies to improve productive traits avoiding the decline of the breed. The genetic variability at 10 microsatellite loci were investigated in a sample of 100 unrelated Markhoz goats (77 females and 23 males). The investigated population was reared at the Sanandaj Markhoz goat Performance Testing Station in Kurdistan, Iran. Markhoz goat, a multipurpose breed, is one of the most valuable genetic resources in Iran. All the studied loci were found to be polymorphic and a total number of 52 alleles were identified with an average number of alleles of 5.2. Moreover, some population genetic indices, such as observed and expected heterozygosity, observed and expected number of alleles, Shannon's index, Nei's expected heterozygosity, and polymorphism information content were also calculated. Despite the decreasing population size, Markhoz goat genetic diversity is still conserved. The breed seems to have a good level of genetic variability and, as a consequence, a potential margin of adaptability to environment and for future genetic improvement.</p

Application of AHP and TOPSIS Models for Site Selection of Municipal Solid Waste Landfill (Case Study: Lali City)

Introduction: Selecting an appropriate landfill site is regarded as one of the most complicated and most difficult stages in the solid waste management, since a great number of environmental, technical, economical, social, and cultural factors should be taken into consideration simultaneously. Therefore, this study aimed to select a suitable landfill site for Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) of Lali city.&nbsp; Methods: AHP and TOPSIS models as well as Geographic Information Systems (GIS) were used in regard with selecting a landfill site. Six regions were identified as landfills taking 11 criteria into account in AHP model. Then, TOPSIS model was utilized in order to rank the landfills based on their priority. The best landfill site option was selected with considering 8 new criteria which were determined from similar studies, field visits and experts&rsquo; ideas. Results: Since AHP was used for weighting and TOPSIS (a multi-criteria decision making method) was applied for ranking the selected options. Finally, option 4 (located in Khaje Abad village) could obtain the first rank and was introduced as the MSW landfill site of Lali city. Conclusion: The study findings revealed that consolidated use of AHP model and TOPSIS model could be perceived as an appropriate method in order to identify the MSW landfill site

HBsAg in parturients referring to gynecologic clinics in Kashan, 2002

Background: Transmission of hepatitis B can occur through different routes. Transmission through umbilical vein occurs in 10, however, HBV is mainly transmitted during the delivery and the early months. In adults HBV infection tend to be chronic in 10, however, in infants it would tend towards chronicity in 98 of the cases. The present study was conducted in gynecologic clinics in Kashan to determine the prevalence of HBsAg in parturients referring to these clinics.Materials and Methods: During this cross-sectional study 2000 parturients referred consecutively. ELISA was used to determine the HBsAg. Meanwhile, risk factors such as age, sex, family history of hepatitis B, previous history of surgery, etc were evaluated.Results: HBsAg was revealed to be positive in 7 cases (0.35). There was a significant association between the family history of hepatitis B and level of education with HBsAg positivity.Conclusion: Although our findings revealed a relatively low prevalence of HBsAg, the necessity of a screening test does still exist